MONTREAL – When Michael Applebaum took office last November as interim mayor of Montreal, nobody had lofty expectations. He brought the novelty factor of being an anglophone, but his main appeal was as a bland manager who promised to distance the administration from the scandals that drove his predecessor, Gérald Tremblay, from office.

Even that mission proved too much, and instead of being remembered as the first anglophone to hold the office in a century, the lasting image of Mayor Applebaum will be of his arrival at Sûreté du Québec headquarters in the back of a police car to face corruption charges.

In a province rocked over the past year by revelations of corruption involving municipal officials and private firms hungry for contracts, Mr. Applebaum’s arrest Monday still had the power to shock. The man who had cast himself as the squeaky-clean choice to repair Montrealers’ pride is alleged to have been corrupted between 2006 and 2011 when he served as mayor of a Montreal borough.

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Robert Lafrenière, head of the provincial anti-corruption squad known by its French acronym UPAC, announced the charges at a news conference. “Today UPAC proceeded with significant arrests related to cases of presumed corruption,” he said. “One of the people arrested, an elected official, is the current mayor of the city of Montreal.”

The 14 criminal charges against Mr. Applebaum — including fraud toward the government, breach of trust, conspiracy and municipal corruption — relate to two real-estate developments in his borough of Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace. Saulie Zadjel, a former councillor from the borough who ran for the federal Conservatives in 2011, and Jean-Yves Bisson, a former municipal bureaucrat, were also charged in connection with the deals.

Police did not identify the projects, but they said they involved bribes valued at “several tens of thousands of dollars.” Court documents reveal that Mr. Applebaum is alleged to have conspired with Robert Stein and Anthony Keeler, two businessmen active in real estate in the borough, and with his then chief of staff, Hugo Tremblay, to defraud the government on one project between 2006 and 2010. Messrs. Stein, Keeler and Tremblay were not charged.

He is alleged to have conspired on a second project between 2009 and 2011 with Mr. Tremblay and three executives from the engineering firm Dessau Inc.: Rosaire Sauriol, Claude Asselin and Patrice Laporte.

The projects were not identified, but Radio-Canada reported that the first was a condominium project and the second a sports complex. The arrest warrant for Mr. Zadjel, who worked as an adviser to Heritage Minister James Moore for a year after his 2011 election loss, alleges he accepted a benefit from Mr. Stein in exchange for a favourable vote at city council. Mr. Bisson is alleged to have received a benefit in exchange for granting a demolition permit.

Mr. Applebaum was released from police custody Monday afternoon on a promise to appear in court next October. Wearing a dark suit and red tie, he strolled to a waiting taxi, offering no comment to a throng of journalists.

Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said Mr. Applebaum should resign immediately. “He doesn’t really have a choice,” she said. She was echoing the calls of municipal party leaders Louise Harel and Richard Bergeron, who had been working in a coalition with Mr. Applebaum until Monday’s arrest.

Ms. Marois said the government does not intend to impose trusteeship on Montreal, as it recently did to the Montreal suburb of Laval following the arrest of its mayor. She said Mr. Applebaum’s arrest does not discredit the entire administration, and another interim mayor can be named to serve until elections in November.

The anti-corruption squad has arrested five other mayors or former mayors since its was created in February 2011. In May, Gilles Vaillancourt, who ruled over Laval for 23 years, was arrested on charges including gangsterism. But for the sitting mayor of Quebec’s largest and Canada’s second-largest city to join the ranks of the allegedly corrupt was stunning.

“When we see the extent of the problems with which we are confronted, it is a little unimaginable,” Ms. Marois said. “It is worse than we ever imagined.”

Marvin Rotrand, a longtime city councillor who served alongside Mr. Applebaum in Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace, said he does not believe the charges and neither do many residents of the borough with whom he has spoken. “We’re all in shock,” he said. “This is out of character for a guy who has a distinguished career and who has been touted as a by-the-book type of guy.”

The disbelief is understandable, but there were signs that not everything was by the book in Mr. Applebaum’s domain. Police raided both Montreal’s city hall and the Côte-des-Neiges-Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace borough offices this year. In March, Robert Rousseau, a senior manager in the borough, committed suicide a day after being interviewed by UPAC investigators.

Mr. Lafrenière said the arrest of Montreal’s mayor shows corruption and collusion is no longer tolerated anywhere. “No one is above the law, and you can’t hide from the law,” he said.

Seven months ago, as Mr. Applebaum made his pitch to be named interim mayor, he described the effect of the endless scandals that had led to his predecessor’s resignation.

“Today, and for some time now, Montrealers have slumped shoulders. They are disappointed. Worse, some are even embarrassed to be Montrealers,” he told his fellow councillors. On Monday, shoulders were slumped a little further, and the embarrassment deepened.

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